Defying trend, games up 9% over last year

By Kevin Downey

     The NCAA basketball finals on CBS posted a nine percent increase in household ratings compared to last year and effectively bucked the trend of declining sports viewing.
   Every game from the semifinals through Monday’s championship had increases from three percent to as high as 20 percent.
   The ratings for Duke’s 82-72 victory over Arizona on Monday were up an impressive 11 percent overall, and 22 percent among men 18-49.
   The increases are especially noteworthy since most other televised sports have been faltering for years and the XFL on NBC has failed miserably with historically low ratings for network TV.
   But the NCAA had a number of things going for it.
   "There’s a good story behind the games with coach Lute Olson, whose wife died at the beginning of the year, it was coach Krzyzewski’s third championship, and you have great basketball players," says John Mansell, senior analyst at Paul Kagan Associates.
   He says the current lack of sports on TV may partially explain the ratings jump but says it could just be that the games were exciting.
   "There’s no other tournament like it [with] the winner taking it all in one game. And there’s tremendous rivalry between Maryland and Duke."
   Although the ratings increases follow a dismal series last year and are the second lowest since 1975, most analysts agree that the NCAA’s strong performance proves that viewers will tune in for major matchups.
   "It’s all the elements of exciting programming that defied what’s going on in television sports ratings," says Dean Bonham, chairman of the Bonham Group, a sports-business consulting firm.
   "This happened to be a tournament where things fell into place the way fans thought they would go. You had the No. 1 and No. 2 teams playing and they are arguably the best two teams in college basketball."
   Although Monday’s final is not included in last week’s ratings, Saturday’s final-four is. That was up nine percent and ranked as the No. 7 show for the week overall, and No. 8 among adults 18-49.
   That game, along with the return of an original episode of "Survivor 2" on Thursday, boosted CBS to a No. 1 tie with ABC in household ratings last week and No. 2 in 18-49s, behind Fox.
   For the week, CBS had an 8.7 household rating and 14 share, based on Nielsen data, and a 4.3, adult 18-49, rating.
   ABC had an 8.7/14 and a 4.2, NBC had a 6.9/11 and 4.2, and Fox had a 6.0/10 and 4.6.
   Just as CBS benefited from having original programming on during a time when many network shows are in repeats, both Fox and ABC had success with originals as well.
   Fox was the No. 1 network in adults 18-49 at least partially because of the premiere of its newest reality series, "Boot Camp."
    The show, which took over the time slot vacated a couple of weeks ago by "Temptation Island," did nearly as well as that short-run series. It debuted to a 7.9 adult 18-49 rating, which is just shy of "Temptation’s" 8.3 premiere rating.
   Fox was also helped by a return of an original episode of the "X-Files" on Sunday and a slightly improving "Lone Gunmen."
   ABC, meanwhile, benefited from its Monday movie, "South Pacific," which ranked No. 10 in households. "What About Joan" did well in its first outing and made it into the top-20 and the premiere of "My Wife and Kids" improved on its time slot rating.
    NBC, on the other hand, suffered from renewed competition from "Survivor 2" on Thursday and disastrous ratings for "Semper Fi," which at one point was a series pilot and ended up ranked No. 59 among the network’s core 18-49 audience. The recently canceled series, "First Years," did considerably worse at No. 78.
   Those types of problems have caused NBC’s 18-49 rating to fall nearly 6 percent this season.
   It still ranks No. 1, though, with a 4.8 to ABC’s and Fox’s 4.6 and CBS’s 4.1, which is up almost eight percent compared to this time last year.
    In households, ABC is still No. 1 for the season with an 8.7/14 to CBS’s 8.6/14, NBC’s 8.0/13, and Fox’s 6.3/10.
   The WB has a slight edge over UPN with a 2.6/4 to a 2.5/4 but both networks have a 1.6, adult 18-49, rating.
    Last week, UPN had a 2.1/3 and 1.4, adult 18-49, rating to the WB’s 2.0/3 and 1.3.

April 4, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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